The next chapter in strategic climate litigation research? A critical doctrinal analysis of grassroots legal mobilisation in Poland

Amid escalating societal crises-including the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts and migration pressures-the European Union faces mounting challenges to its integrative and democratic structures. While institutional responses often rely on top-down governance, a growing wave of societal mobilisations seek to gain momentum and influence politics and law from the grassroots. Therefore, grassroots societal forces increasingly turn to strategic climate litigation as a socio-legal tool to demand democratic and constitutional renewal in specific member states, such as Poland, in the face of the climate crisis. This article draws on critical legal scholarship to explore how research on strategic climate litigation can be enriched through critical doctrinal analysis as a coherent research method. Using the case study of Rybnicki Alarm Smogowy (RAS) legal mobilisation in Poland, the article demonstrates how critical doctrinal analysis can contribute to strategic climate litigation research.